Padres on Brink of Postseason Berth After Dominant Stretch

The champagne and goggles are being readied near the visitors’ clubhouse at Dodger Stadium. The reams of plastic protective sheeting for the lockers are being stacked and readied. All of it signals what is increasingly becoming a foregone conclusion: the San Diego Padres are about to celebrate a postseason appearance.

Whether the celebration comes later this week or spills into the weekend, the Padres are virtually certain to be raising their arms in triumph by the time the regular season concludes. With every win and every day erased from the calendar, the inevitability grows stronger. The question is no longer if, but when and how.

The Padres’ latest triumph — their 13th victory in their past 14 games — came in commanding fashion, a 7-3 dismantling of the Marlins that further opened the door to October baseball. That result left the Padres within striking distance of clinching a postseason berth, needing only one victory or a combination of their success and a Diamondbacks stumble to make it official.

As Fernando Tatis Jr. acknowledged, the Padres still have “homework to do.” But the math is reassuring: even if the Padres win just one game this week, the Diamondbacks would need to go 6-0 over the remaining days to finish ahead of them. That’s a scenario with almost no historical precedent.

Walker Buehler’s Big-Game DNA

Walker Buehler showed exactly yesterday why he is likely to anchor the Padres’ starting rotation when the postseason arrives. The right-hander allowed just two hits and two walks before surrendering a three-run homer with two outs in the seventh — the kind of blow he likely never would have permitted in a more consequential game.

The 32-year-old has posted a 3.15 ERA over his past nine starts, a stretch that has coincided with the Padres’ surging push toward October. More telling is his track record when the stakes rise: Buehler has allowed just one run over 18 innings in World Series starts for the Dodgers, including a scoreless ninth inning to close out the 2024 championship against the Yankees.

“I think that’s who he is,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said. “That’s his persona: ‘Give me the ball in a big game and I’ll give you a good start.’ That’s not easy to do. A lot of guys can’t elevate their game in that way or stay in that same space.”

Stammen continued: “He has that unique ability, and I think we’ve seen that throughout his entire career. Now it’s nice to have that type of personality on our team.”

There is a presence about Buehler on the mound — an unshakable confidence that persists even when the rest of the game is struggling. He rarely looks defeated. More often, he looks like someone who might step right off the rubber and settle an argument with his fists. The Padres are 21-10 in games he starts, and they are a remarkable 3-1 even in outings where he hasn’t lasted three innings.

“I think it’s just a level of confidence,” Jake Cronenworth said. “He knows who he is as a pitcher. You see his preparation, what he does, his execution out there. It seems like it’s getting better and better every outing.”

Buehler himself is pragmatic about what separates high-stakes contests from ordinary starts.

“I’m trying to go out and give our team a chance to win the game,” Buehler said. “In these big games, or at the end of the year, if they give up a run and we don’t, then we’re winning, right? There’s a lot of beating the other starting pitcher that matters at the end of the year.”

The Rotation Equation

Stammen confirmed that Michael King will start the next series opener against the Dodgers, swapping spots in the rotation with Robbie Ray. The strategic logic is clear: this arrangement lines King up for the final day of the regular season, ensuring that if a game becomes a true win-or-go-home scenario, the Padres can deploy their most reliable arm in that situation.

If King doesn’t pitch that closing game, he would most likely take the ball in Game 1 of the playoffs. That strongly suggests King will only pitch Sunday against the Diamondbacks if the Padres are still actively fighting for a postseason spot — not merely if the result determines home-field status in the wild-card round.

Having King on the mound for Game 1 appears paramount, even if that game unfolds in Chicago, Philadelphia, or Atlanta. The Padres have been excellent at Petco Park this season, and with one final three-game series remaining next weekend, they have an opportunity to tie their second-best home record in a full 81-game season.

However, context matters. Visiting teams have claimed nine of the 16 wild-card series since the playoffs expanded in 2022. Playing on the road is no death sentence.

The real calculus may come down to a choice: being at home without a pitcher carrying a 1.95 ERA over his past eight starts, or being on the road with that same pitcher ready for Game 1. On paper, that is a straightforward decision.

Jake Cronenworth in the Zone

Cronenworth played third base yesterday — his third different infield position over four days and the fourth he’s started in eight. It is this defensive versatility, and his ability to play those spots at a high level, that leads baseball insiders to offer the familiar compliment that his contributions “don’t always show up in the box score.”

Yesterday, however, was precisely the kind of game where the box score told the whole story. Cronenworth connected for the second multi-homer game of his career, his fourth outing with at least five RBIs, and his fifth with three or more extra-base hits.

“That was pretty cool,” he said afterward.

Cronenworth is batting .400 (16-for-40) during a 10-game hitting streak, just two hits shy of the career high he set in 2024. When a player hitting in the seventh slot can suddenly pop two home runs, Stammen notes, “that just makes our lineup as strong as we can possibly be.”

Tatis Jr.’s Historic Power-Speed Profile

Fernando Tatis Jr.’s home run in the seventh inning yesterday was his 25th of the season, placing him in elite company: he is just the 11th player in MLB history to record at least four seasons with 25 or more home runs and 25 or more stolen bases.

The achievement is made all the more striking by his slow start — Tatis had zero home runs through 55 games this season. Now, with 36 stolen bases, had his usual power output arrived by late May, the conversation would center on him chasing the exclusive 40/40 club.

As it stands, the finite number of players who have reached 25/25 as frequently as Tatis demonstrates the genuine rarity of his dual-threat ability.

Jason Adam on Track for Activation

Reliever Jason Adam threw live batting practice at Petco Park with the expectation he will be activated off the injured list later this week. That plan moves forward despite Adam allowing nine runs and recording just one out in his last two outings for Triple-A El Paso.

“Not great,” he said with a laugh. “I think the rehab games — I don’t read into those. I read into how it feels coming out of the hand. I read into how the pitch shapes are relative to the location. I feel ready to get big-league hitters out. I feel like I’m in a great spot.”

The Padres organization agrees, attributing his rough outings to bad luck in a hitter-friendly environment. With only one week of the regular season remaining, the urgency is palpable.

Said Stammen: “We want to see him pitch against big-league hitters and get him ready for playoff baseball.”

Playing the Schedule Smartly

The competition over the past two weeks — aside from the season-opening victory against the Yankees — was not elite. But the Padres weren’t beating those teams in late August and early September either. A good team has to beat the teams in front of it, and San Diego did exactly that.

The Padres swept the Nationals, Giants, and Marlins while winning three of four against the Rockies. The Marlins were the strongest opponent of that group, which helped inflate the trio’s combined winning percentage to a mere .432 — the equivalent of an 84-game pace below .500.

“We’ve had a good run of baseball,” Stammen said. “Sometimes you take it for granted. You feel like we should be winning all these games, but that’s not the case. The teams we’ve played over this last stretch have played us very tough, and we’ve just been able to stick to our guns and play tight baseball, winning baseball, and we’ve come out on the good end of it.”

The Padres finished the regular season with a 59-28 record against teams holding losing records — the best such mark in the major leagues. Among the six National League teams in playoff position, only the Phillies’ winning percentage against winning teams (.460) trails the Padres (.475).

Tidbits

• Cronenworth’s first home run was the shortest (325 feet) hit at Petco Park since at least 2015, when StatCast began tracking home run distances.
• Jackson Merrill went 1-for-4 to extend his hitting streak to a career-high 11 games, batting .438 (21-for-48) during the streak.
• Dustin Harris extended his hitting streak to 10 games, going 1-for-4 and raising his average to .409 (15-for-40) over those 11 games.
• Tatis owns a .414 on-base percentage while reaching base in 15 consecutive games and has scored a run in nine straight — the longest such streak of his career.
• Xander Bogaerts was 1-for-3 with a walk and is reaching base at a .414 clip over 17 games this month.
• The Padres’ first community initiative under new owners Kwanza Jones and José E. Feliciano included a $1.25 million donation by the team and Yu Darvish to the Clairemont Boys & Girls Club.

All things considered, the Padres have positioned themselves for the most meaningful late-season stretch in years. Their roster is healthy, their pitching is peaking at the right moment, and their stars are performing at their best when the spotlight is brightest. The homework, it appears, is nearly complete.

No game is scheduled today, so there is no newsletter. A deeper story looking back at arguably the most crucial period of the Padres’ season and how they navigated it will appear on the Padres page later today.

The next Padres Daily will arrive in your inbox Wednesday morning after the series opener at Dodger Stadium. Talk to you then.

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